Date/Time: January 20th and 21st, 2022
Location: City of Upland and Community of San Antonio Heights
Incident: Santa Ana Wind Event
Summary: This past week a significant Santa Ana wind event occurred in Southern California, with significant winds in our Valley areas. Strong sustained winds with gusts up to 86 mph caused significant damage to trees, utility poles and personal property throughout the area. The Upland area received higher than normal winds and was significantly impacted. During the January 20th and 21st wind event, San Bernardino County Fire and other local agencies stayed extremely busy, running more than 100 calls locally, including a brush fire, dozens of tree down calls, energized power lines down and other routine emergencies.
As the wind subsided, local partners, including San Bernardino County Fire worked to free roadways, remove dangerous trees and aid in the clean-up throughout the City of Upland and community of San Antonio Heights. #SBCoFD deployed Crew 6 and 7, our professional all-risk hand crews to the area to assist. The fourteen- member crew worked for two days, working on clean up and removing hazard trees. The crew worked with Upland City staff at more than 60 local sites for a total of 280-man hours. The all-risk hand crew was vital bringing specialized equipment, tools and skills to safely and efficiently mitigate hazards.
Info on SBCOFD’s Professional All-Risk Hand Crews:
Professional Hand Crew members go through training that includes: wildland fire behavior, advanced wildland firefighting tactics, saw and hand tool techniques, helicopter operations, confined space awareness, structure protection techniques, and Haz-Mat responder functions. All members are emergency medical technicians (EMT) or first-responder trained.
Info on SBCoFD’s All-Risk Hand Crew:
SBCoFD hand crews have become increasingly deployed to various incidents in recent years and serve multiple benefits to the county. In addition to their work in wildland areas, hand crews are assigned to conduct mop-up operations after fires are put out, ensuring that hotspots don’t flare up and the fire is fully extinguished. Hand crew teams can serve multiple roles in fire suppression as they can create fire lines, defensible space, and conduct mop-up operations, improving efficiency and relieving firefighters and medic engines to return to
service.
SBCoFD hand crews are also involved in various community projects that provide hazard fuel mitigation in fire prone areas such as our mountain communities (Forest Falls, Angelus Oaks, Lytle Creek). Hand crews are just one of many ways that SBCoFD serves with Duty, Honor, and Community.
